Immigration Law Changes

[KeithE]

Personally I’d say we should be far more lenient in letting people in. Yet there needs to be a checkpoint (with searches for drugs/guns/other bad stuff) /background checks for past criminality/ registration (indicating their plans {or lack thereof} with signature that says they will obey the law else they are subject to possible deportation). I would also support a variable limit of number accepted but at much higher rates that we allow today. I say variable since it will should slide with employment needs in our country (i.e if we had a robust infrastructure program, that limit should be a large number). This is the way we grow as a country numerically, economically and as a participant in creating wellness across the world. That would make America Greater than it ever has been. Hats could say Make America Better (MAB)

Dreamers, DACA recipients, TPSers should be grandfathered in. Almost all are contributing members of our society. Criminals among those are subject to our normal justice system.

I'm sure much more needs to be stated in a truly “comprehensive plan” and I am subject to a change of mind from that stated above.

Have at it. I’m gong to a Kairos meeting.

[Rvaughn]

I think I am in general agreement with what you state, Keith, barring misunderstanding what you have stated and assuming we would have disagreements on some details. I think we have a immigration system and laws that need fixing, and that neither Democrats nor Republicans really want to do the work necessary, but would rather want to make points with their supporters. A "comprehensive" fix will require compromise on both sides.

I agree with you on people who are already here and are contributing members of society. Yes, they did come here illegally (not according to our immigration laws), but they are not the problem. I think what the "average Joe" (and the "average Jane") wants is a system that will keep out criminals and terrorists and that most of them (us) are not really in a frenzy to send back otherwise law-abiding working people who are already here. I know this can and does seem unfair to those immigrants who came here legally, but sometimes you just have to decide you can't fix everything in the past and then do what you can for what is best in the future.

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

Birthright citizenship is as constitutional as the right to bear arms. That's not a part of the constitution you hear much about, but there it is.

The problem is that these discussions focus on a crisis that is a figment of the imagination. The US has a strong set of immigration laws and national security practices related to who gets across its borders and they were working just fine. Differences in the number of people attempting to come across illegally, especially from Mexico related to situation that occur in countries south of the border, not in US politics. You can google information and put together a whole folder full of information that shows exactly how effective United States border security was during the Obama administration. The rhetoric from Trump about shutting down all immigration of any kind until we could "figure out what the **** was going on" was just rhetoric, not based on fact or on even any knowledge of what was happening at the border. He and his base are blithely ignorant of the facts, they are just upset because the number of Latinos in the US is on the rise and they don't like it because they're not white. Period.

There was a time when the number of people sneaking into the US illegally was much higher, enforcement was lax and drug lords took advantage of the lack of security to move their goods. We call that period of time "the Bush administration." It is an example of what happens when you cut the budget to give tax breaks to billionaires. And it wasn't just the Southern border. During that period of time, the 9-11 terrorists came into the US. The figures you can find show the increased drug traffic and the stream of illegals who came in hit the 12 million mark. The Obama administration pretty much cleaned up the mess and restored order, at least, that's what the evidence points to. The whole issue of immigration, the wall and border security is a Trump talking point that he used to keep the mindless occupied and to keep them from getting bored at rallies where he went on and on and on...……….

That being said, US immigration laws can be insensitive and pernicious. We're willing to keep an open door and unlimited quotas for Europeans, and our attitude toward white Eastern Europeans has warmed up as they have streamed into the US in larger numbers than ever since the iron curtain came down. We're also willing to take in a lot of South Asians, particularly Indians, if they have money to invest. Latinos, not so much. And yet they, and the refugees from Middle Eastern countries like Syria, particularly persecuted minorities like Christians, have a much more difficult path to get in legally than others do.

[Rvaughn]

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

[Rvaughn]

[Dave Roberts]

It is humorous to me that Trump and his allies would like to end birthright citizenship. He has made a fortune marketing hotel space to rich Chinese who come to this country, stay in a Trump hotel, have a baby in an American hospital, then carry their little dual citizenship baby back to China but always have an anchor in the US.

[Dave Roberts]

Couldn't find the article on Chinese birth tourism, but there is a more recent one on Russian birth tourism.

[Sandy]

[Rvaughn]

[Haruo]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

9-11 happened on W's watch. Yes, some of them had been in the country before, and one for a while prior to the attack, but just about every memoir I've read on the subject says that the Bush administration's watch on immigration and border security wasn't paying attention and if they had been, they may have prevented the attack.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

Both of James Risen's works on the subject are well documented. I picked up The New Pearl Harbor right after it came out. State of War is also pretty good. And there's some pretty good background in Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

Oops, yes, was looking at the bookshelf at the time I wrote that. The New Pearl Harbor is very well documented. Do I believe his story? After reading Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9-11 I do.

Wright is much more of an expert on the background and history of radical Islam and after reading that, it becomes pretty clear that most Americans, including most conservative Evangelical Christians, are pretty clueless about all of that. I have to admit, I certainly was.

I wasn't really intending to read a "loaded" list about Bush administration conspiracy theories, but the evidence comes out like step by step solving of a mystery murder. Dick Cheney was, IMHO, the one who pushed and shoved all of that, I don't think Bush was ever really in control of anything related to national security, he just deferred to Cheney, and John Bolton.

[Rvaughn]

[Rvaughn]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Rvaughn]

I wonder how many different paths to citizenship we have for immigrants? Anyone know?